CP3: UNIVERSAL POINT GUARD

The new NBA Players Association president is Clippers point guard Chris Paul and I couldn't think of a better choice. Check the resume: He's a dad, an all-star, an Olympic Gold Medalist and he's coachable. I once met former Lakers sharp shooter and former New Orleans Hornets head coach Byron Scott and he told me how upset Chris was when he (Scott) was fired in New Orleans. The reaction was like that of a kid who amusingly tries to stick up for his dad when pops comes home and says, "I was fired today son." CP3 was ready to make some calls to the owner, ready to protest, ready to fight for all things decent. I think Coach Scott talked him off the frontline.

But Paul seems like an extremely protective guy, someone with a high quotient for justice and someone who has decided it's too much work to try and convince people that you're something other than who you were born to be.

He's quoted on brainyquote.com as having said, "No matter where you put me, I don't care if it is North Carolina, Florida, California, New York City; I'm going to be who I am." I like this next quote even better where he's recorded saying, "I trust my wife more than I trust myself." That's a real man talkin'.

There's something about CP that makes you wanna buy a jersey. There are some people who are bigger than the sports they play, whose jersey number and last name signify something transcendent. It's like what comes to mind when you see the words Johnson in purple over #32 or Manning over #18 up in Denver. In the moments we are blessed to encounter an athlete who is both competitor and ambassador, we find it difficult to merely fanaticize toward the iconic figure; we actually desire to emulate that personified inspiration. We prescribe that emulation to ourselves, to kids, to random others. The impact of an athlete who crosses over from phenomenal performer to "leader" can never be measured. Derek Fisher is a similar case study of a clutch guy who's ethos permeated his profession. But Fisher was not in the echelon that CP3 is currently in. And that makes Chris Paul even more interesting to watch. He's about as elite as it gets and yet he says things like...

"I have a Dominique Wilkins Hawks jersey that I still wear. That's probably my favorite one. What's funny is that I spend all this time collecting jerseys, and now people are out there collecting mine."

Almost without trying, just by being himself, Paul is grounded. It just so happens that his self is a transparent, honest self. Sometimes it's hard to believe he was literally a Laker for several hours until David Stern vetoed the trade.

I keep arguing that the character driven athlete, the basketball player who is self-aware will undoubtedly outperform his deluded counterparts. And I guess that's true to a degree. But more impressive to me is when a guy like Chris Paul embraces leadership as if to say, I've been a point guard my whole life, why not assist and make plays everywhere else too.

The Quest to be Superior

See if these words strike a chord in you. WE ALL STRIVE TO BE SUPERIOR. I'm the best MC, the best mom, the best point guard. Superlatives are really what people desire. Most likely to be on television or in my case, Most Likely to become the fourth member of a boy band (at the time BozIIMen) while preaching on weekends. That was the fortune fortold of me in 1993 as high school concluded. I kind of preach some weekends but I never got that call from Bell Biv Devoe telling me I was what they needed.

There's probably no better indicator of just how much people want to be superior than when men participate in 3-on-3 basketball. I got that call on Friday night asking me to fill in at the Nike3on3 at LA Live held this past weekend. First bout with superiority? My knee. It didn't feel good as a result of my Wednesday game but was I going to submit to injury. You already know the buffoonish retort. HECKKKKKK NAW! I'm a man. So I played. And I took Advil which I never do as insurance. Keep in mind, I wasn't asked to save a life or walk into a burning building to retrieve babies. I was asked to play basketball in one of the most volatile environments. And so i quested to be superior to my weakness and then to be superior to other weekend warriors.

Why is 3-on-3 so bad? Because every trained basketball player and coach knows that this is one of the purest forms of basketball. If you screen and cut, communicate and move without the ball in your hands, it's poetry in motion. If you're selfless and you exploit match-ups, spoils go to the cerebral. But that's not the brand of hoop played in front of Staples Center. It's more like, "Nah bruh, I gotta pound that dude. He's being physical so I'm gonna be physical. He's shoving so why play basketball when I can bruise." I watched brutish men throw each other around like it was a WWE Royal Rumble. And it's not about prize money. It's about that P-R-I-D-E. I'm the alpha, no I'm the alpha and so-on. Question is...why the quest for such an elusive payoff? It'd be equally asinine to chase the tail most humans weren't born with or attempt to taste wind. Who's superior? Is Kobe Bryant , who in 17 seasons of NBA participation has won 5 championships to date? Because then, by superior, we mean reaching the pinnacle of performance only 29 percent of the time qualifies as superior. Or go with Mike Jordan because he got 6 in about 15 seasons. Okay, so now I'm at 40 percent success which in my classes growing up equated with TAKE YO DUMB BUTT HOME AND STUDY SOME MO' because 40 percent is an F-minus.

So somewhere along the line, a myth was purported and spread that superiority is achievable. Drake wasn't the first guy to assert that he started from the bottom (which he didn't) and rose to stardom via hard work. The myth of questing for superiority promises that it's accessible for the relentless. I assure you it is not as evidenced by 3-on-3 basketball and athletes worldwide. I was at the Drew League at King/Drew Magnet High School in South Central yesterday.  I saw James Harden and Metta World Peace team up and lose a close one to a team of less famous men. It was funny too because the player formerly known as Ron Artest once maliciously elbowed Harden in the back of the head a couple of years back causing him to leave a game. I digress.

Back to the lecture at hand though, there's something evil about questing for superiority. It's like we weren't meant to actually be God. We are housed in these mortal frames with limitations that stem from our emotions, vices, physical injury, etc. No one can rule forever. No one can be the best everyday. And so why make claims that you can. The first time I saw a dead man in the streets it was allegedly due to one man's failed quest for superiority. He had been in an altercation earlier that day and had successfully beaten up a man who after the beat-down vowed to come back with a gun. The recipient of said ass-whipping kept his promise. And the superior became fatally inferior and the inferior became, for a moment, superior. Ah...to know what came of that shooter though. Ancient wisdom literature says that, "Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all." While in the midst of time and chance our quests are better spent on discovering purpose. I can assure you that I wasn't put on Earth just to win a 3-on-3 basketball tournament. I'd certainly like to believe there's more for me here than that.

INTEGRITY NOW OR LATER?

Prep Schools, Reclassification, Hold Backs... What the...? These are common terms now considered part and parcel when it comes to maximizing your son or daughter's recruiting potential out of high school. There are Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) tourneys every weekend in converted warehouses turned multiplex facilities. You pay to park and to get in just to watch kids, who aren't old enough to drive yet, play basketball. There's a lot to say about all of this craziness but I'm especially intrigued with the extended prep educational experiences prescribed to many parents.

The fifth year is common now for the serious top recruits, the ones with NBA on their minds. It's hard to look at the phenomenon and not think, "Man, maybe I just didn't want basketball bad enough back in the early 90s when I was in high school. Kids now are down to stay a year longer in school and be held back..." then I come to my senses. There used to be a stigma about staying in school too long, looking older than everyone else and graduating from high school at 19 or 20. And I realize that now you can actually graduate and go to basketball academies where you won't be judged as if you failed senior year. But still...it's weird to me.

In the last 10 years in our culture the ethos of amateur basketball has morphed into, for elite players, a systemic on-ramp to professional basketball. There's a concocted cocktail almost scientific in its exactness that is supposed to at minimum land a prep a scholarship. Back in the day, and I know how this sounds, but back in the day your high school team was the primary vehicle for exposure. My college coach came to Diamond Bar high school and saw me play. He didn't come to some basketball factory with short courts and running time games. And this isn't to say that my day was better. I'm just saying I struggle to understand the obsession. There's opportunism in the eyes of people who have made lucrative business out of the basketball stage that used to be more formative and recreational. And there's the same opportunism in the hearts of parents who desperately want their athletes to excel.

I guess it worked for Shabazz Muhammad the Minnesota Timberwolves rookie recently sent home from the NBA rookie transition program. In fact, it works for enough guys, just enough guys to keep the amateur compulsion alive and well. And I get that. I get that keeping kids busy keeps them out of trouble and that skill mastery is likely when you repeat-rinse-and-repeat. But dude, you ain't got to lie to get your kid good. You ain't got to hold your kid back and reclassify him so that he's class of 2014 instead of 2013. Commit to the core virtues that make people great and the young bull will still develop. Trust me. Some things never stop working. Patience is a virtue and a developer of virtue.

PRIDE in disguise

One of my "Core 12" lessons learned from NOT playing basketball. is RESPECT UP, DOWN and ACROSS. I still play as much hoop as possible and yesterday I had a game down at Caltech in Pasadena, California in the Inter Hoops Basketball League (IBL). My squad has been on a losing slide of late, dropping close games due to inefficiency in a number areas. Namely, we ain't hittin' shots or rebounding very well.

But yesterday we squared up against a team that had 6 players total, one of whom was female. My team is five men. So you see where this is going right? There's a chauvinist in me who isn't about to be beaten by a girl. I know, I know. And so the game starts and she's pretty good, not for a girl. She's good! She hit a couple of 3's and played almost the entire game. She was a fundamental player knowing when to cut, how to fade and shape up to the ball for shots and how to screen.

So on one play I saw her on my left peripheral preparing to set a screen on the ball meaning she was about to block me on my left so that I couldn't slide into a proper defensive position to stop the point guard from attacking the basket. Well, I did what all good defenders do (I think) and leveled her. And I know that sounds mean and brutish. Referees quickly called an offensive foul on me saying that I ran through the screen. I yelled at the ref that I can't control the "differential". I literally used that word so as not to say, "It's not my fault she's not as strong as me."

Now let's pause.

Back to my Core 12. RESPECT UP, DOWN and ACROSS is a term that I use in my 6IXTH MAN approach to character. It means that I show a reverence for all people no matter how I may view them. It means that I honor people because they have been created by God.

When I knocked that young lady down, it was one of those moments where I could hide behind the basketball play. "That's the price you pay in hoop for attempting a screen." I believe that. Really I do. Basketball is physical and knows no gender. It's a game. HOWEVER!!!! I took it personal that she'd try to step in front of me. IN FRONT OF ME! I knew I was being arrogant in the moment, in my mind and I believe it was a poor display because of what I was exuding. The referees knew I was making an immature power play and they responded.

See, I know at least three other ways to handle a screen. I could have easily closed my space to my defender and gone over the top of the screen. That's what I normally do, especially in a league where the art of screening is raw. I didn't even help her up. I'm still learning that fine line between competing and being human. As I reflect, all I can say is that the level I took it to yesterday didn't match the type of game being played. Pick on someone my own size? That's kind of how I came to look at the situation. Still unsure. Was I dirty in putting that girl on the floor? Her team was destroying us at the moment. And she wasn't a small woman. But where was my mind and more importantly my estimation of the scenario: A balmy Sunday in Pasadena in a game that no one will remember. Perspective is necessary.

I think the team we played yesterday respected me. Every time I switched to guard someone they said, "Damn man, why do you have to guard me?" That always makes me laugh. My response is usually something like, "Somebody needs to guard you. You're killin' us." The moral: If you're losing a game, it's because the other team respects you. They are coming after you because they respect your ability to beat them. Question is...how will you respond to counter the energy? #core6of12 #Respect